RealGM

Starters:
** Brooklyn **
James Harden
Joe Harris
Kevin Durant
Blake Griffin
Nic Claxton

** Philly **
Tyrese Maxey
Seth Curry
Danny Green
Tobias Harris
Joel Embiid


Injuries:
Kyrie Irving - OUT (Too "Woke" to play)
Ben Simmons - OUT ("mentally unready to play")
Shake Miltion - OUT (Ankle)
Grant Riller - Out (Knee)
Joel Embiid - Questionable (Right Knee Soreness)


We dont have the biggest headcase tonight missing time....



Lets gooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

People will say we need to make up for an embarassing opening night but i dont think its at that level. they would liked to have played better, but this isnt a "we'll show em tonight" type game. i think just refocus.

No simmons, maybe no embiid. no matter who plays i like our chances. Need to take a note from the bucks game.... let embiid score 50, but do not help off curry/green/role shooters. they cant beat us with embiid doing it all.

Interested to see if we try and go big again.

Thanks for taking up the OP mantle, P.

I'm cool with us going big in the frontcourt again, but we need ball pressure on the perimeter. I would prefer to see Carter-Harden-Brown-Durant-Claxton starting, with a bench of Mills, Bembry, Harris, Millsap and Griffin. Neither James nor Joe can chase the Sixers' small starting guards, so Jevon and Bruce can handle them primarily.

Similar to the flight warning about air masks in the event of a crash landing, James needs to first concentrate on his scoring and making defenses fear him again, before worrying about getting others going. I know he's the playmaker, but going back to the end of last season, opposing teams have taken notice: James doesn't look to score like he had in previous years. Because of this, they are swiping at his crossover and playing his passing lanes more than ever. He needs to torch a team or 3, just to get them back to respecting his shot creation ability. Then, he'll have an easier time creating chances for others (see: Claxton, Nic).

If we see the same foolishness again where Nash has us helping off of shooters leading to Seth Curry, Tobias Harris and Danny Green having wide open threes, I'm going to lose hope on this team ever winning anything with this dope at the helm.

At the same time, if the Nets go into this game with the same lollygag effort, it doesn't matter. We will look foolish on national television again.

So I have this weird, contrarian liking for when we get blown out against another good team or shown up nationally when nothing's really at stake other than pride and/or BRK fans' panties getting bunched.

To me, this kinda loss helpfully lowers expectations, smacks the supporting cast upside the head a bit, and provides useful feedback to the coaching staff. Probably, it also helps motivate our crew to get it together that much more expeditiously. Good stuff assuming a team cares, and in this team's case, there's pretty much zero chance they won't.

That said, anyone have an opinion about how much weight Clax added in the offseason? I only caught ~two quarters of our opener and couldn't really tell. It's almost like the 'Fro chronicles' all over again, except that Nic came in even skinnier. Current listings are like 215lb for Clax and 30lbs heavier for JA, yipes!

Everyone goes on and on about how the nets need more size to rebound. We have size. We don’t rebound well because of the switching defense. It constantly puts our centers and pfs on the outside when a shot goes up. No one is there to box out and rebound. Last year the nets didn’t switch with LMA as much. They played a a lot of drop coverage when he was in the game because he could recover to the player and drop back. This first game they made him switch. They need to drop this defense switching it didn’t work last year so why continue. Are they incapable for playing defense

Sharcm1 wrote:Everyone goes on and on about how the nets need more size to rebound. We have size. We don’t rebound well because of the switching defense. It constantly puts our centers and pfs on the outside when a shot goes up. No one is there to box out and rebound. Last year the nets didn’t switch with LMA as much. They played a a lot of drop coverage when he was in the game because he could recover to the player and drop back. This first game they made him switch. They need to drop this defense switching it didn’t work last year so why continue. Are they incapable for playing defense

in what way did switching not work? We became significantly better with blake/Claxton later in the year specifically because we could switch everything. We were #1 defense in the league last year when claxton was on the floor. granted that was limited minutes and wouldnt hold up over 82 games but still speaks to how much better switching is.

on the flip side, there is little evidence that rebounding matters in any impactful way towards winning. the past decade poor rebounding teams have performed well and even won titles.

When Aldridge is on the floor, we should mix in drop coverage. We also need to play with Joe coming off the bench, so that we have requisite ball pressure on the perimeter. James cannot do that, he needs to focus his energies on running the offense and defending the corners and post.

To g's earlier point, yes, I think that the opening night loss should be a humbling lesson. We're experimenting, but the way we lost his waaaay beyond experimentation. We let go of the rope, and our strategy was subpar to boot. We've been reading our press clippings, sniffing our own backsides and thinking it smells sweet. If we didn't learn Tuesday, we'll get some more humble pie tonight, and we won't be able to use the "we're missing an All-Star" excuse, because so are they.

I am hopeful that we will show a vastly improved effort level.

Day'ron Sharpe has been ruled out with a toe injury.

It would it intriguing to see Nash's rotation tonight. In game 1 Claxton started and played 30 mins against a big center (Lopez) which probably means he's the firm starter at center for now. This probably means Bbjr will sit on the bench again. (barely played game 1)

haosmoove wrote:It would it intriguing to see Nash's rotation tonight. In game 1 Claxton started and played 30 mins against a big center (Lopez) which probably means he's the firm starter at center for now. This probably means Bbjr will sit on the bench again. (barely played game 1)

bbjr?

We went with Blake on embiid in the preseason... Embiid played great but it was mostly jumpers, not bully ball. which you live with. I can see similar to the bucks where claxton guards tobias maybe?

Nash needs to adjust in game, regardless of who starts.

Prokorov wrote:

haosmoove wrote:It would it intriguing to see Nash's rotation tonight. In game 1 Claxton started and played 30 mins against a big center (Lopez) which probably means he's the firm starter at center for now. This probably means Bbjr will sit on the bench again. (barely played game 1)

bbjr?

Bruce Brown Jr.

I guess players are allowed to jump into Harden's landing space now on 3-point shots? Apparently he has a different set of rules from every other player in the league? Ok.

This starting unit is not working. Joe Harris needs to move to the bench

pr0wler wrote:I guess players are allowed to jump into Harden's landing space now on 3-point shots? Apparently he has a different set of rules from every other player in the league? Ok.

Harden has been fouled twice and no call. KD was fouled on a three point attempt, no call.

MrDollarBills wrote:

pr0wler wrote:I guess players are allowed to jump into Harden's landing space now on 3-point shots? Apparently he has a different set of rules from every other player in the league? Ok.

Harden has been fouled twice and no call. KD was fouled on a three point attempt, no call.

Refs way over compensating with the new rules. Since Harden is historically crafty at drawing fouls, but now they're overreacting and anything short of drawing blood is perceived as James flopping.

I expect this will correct in the near future, but for now it's pretty annoying and definitely unfair.

This starting five sucks. Nash is a moron.

As soon as Claxton, Harris and Blake sit the score gets cut to 6. Hmm.

So... no mins for Bruce Brown again. Sigh